A basic study on algorithm of real-time schedule table for fieldbus

For a field-level industrial network, the real-time characteristic is very important. Fieldbuses are typical industrial control networks and their real-time characteristic mainly depends on the temporal property of the MAC protocol, which also is requirement of a distributed computer control system. Both WorldFIP and FF are the most important fieldbuses by their character of adopting a schedule table (ST) to control the real-time communication of tasks. This paper mainly introduces the characteristic of the ST algorithm, including establishing and optimizing it, and how to use it to support real-time communication in an industrial control network.